What if a state simply mandated that universities and schools pick up the tab for textbooks that are required for courses? The schools could be allowed to alter tuition to pay for the books -- but the changes in tuition have to be flat or by department. Very quickly, schools would have great incentives to watch the prices of books closely.
What incentive would there be for the university to watch the cost of books? They would just up the tuition more, as if it isn't high enough all ready, since there would now be no accountability for the costs of books. It would be hidden in the tuition fee so publishers and colleges could even charge more than before. Try to say the college can't charge full price for the book, and they will just fold the charge in somewhere else to the people paying for college. Believe me, the colleges won't pay for the books and they will find a way to make money for having to administer the program.
Sorry, rolling the cost of books in with the tuition will only increase prices even further for colleges making the problem even worse not make the cost of textbooks lower. Life don't work that way.
For instance, one of my English courses demanded we purchase a new novel to read just about each week. Another demanded that we have to purchase our own pop quiz machine for $150 so we could correct our own quizzes. (wouldn't you know that the company was sold out by the time she told us this and so we all had to take a lower grade for not purchasing one!)
Another professor demanded that we have a whole separate binder with filing system and pens and gear just for their class.
Seriously, most semesters I could barely pay my rent and went hungry more than once. I often worked three jobs just to keep my bills covered while in college.
It still gets me that books are not included as an expense for college in most colleges. in other words, since theoretically we can purchase them online, (they are always sold out online, go figure. They do not allow us to calculate the cost of our books when applying for financial aid or for tax purposes when getting tax deductions for paying tuition.
It stinks.
More people would go to college if it was easier.
I agree somethign has to be done...but what?
There's also the issue that this is the computer age, and there is a LOT of free information out there (check out MITs free courses [ ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Global/all-courses.htm], for example) -- why aren't the colleges taking more advantage of it?
Feh.